


A Certain Point of View

by Peapods



Series: Phil Couslon is Mike Casper When it Suits Him [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The West Wing, Twin Peaks
Genre: Characters Who Are FBI Agents Are One Big Happy Family, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4996819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil wanders back into a previous role in order to get advice from a friend who might as well be Obi-Wan Kenobi, for all the help he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Point of View

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the same universe as "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" and basically any of my posted Twin Peaks stories. Understanding of this story doesn't require reading the latter, though without the former you might be lost. As for Agents of Shield, you need only to have seen the first couple episodes of the second season (if that). This is existential, not plot-heavy.

It was fairly cool day, considering it was late May in Washington D.C., but Director Phil Coulson hardly noticed. He watched the tourists that strolled the monuments with distant preoccupation, wondering how they remained so blase when the world seemed to be falling apart every other Thursday.

 _Never could get the hang of Thursdays_ , the line sprung unbidden into his mind and his mouth quirked involuntarily. He pulled up his phone and sighed, noting no new messages or calls, before resuming his scan of the area.

“If you are attempting to look covert, Special Agent Casper, I fear the black clothing and ball cap will do you no favors, my friend,” said a voice to his right. He looked up to smile.

Assistant Director of CID Dale Cooper was smiling as well, crow’s feet crinkling and dimples deep. His hair was largely silver now, rather than the black Phil remembered it being only a few years before. Everything else about him was the same. The hair was still slicked back, he still wore the same dark suit and tie, and he ubiquitous tan trench coat was slung over one arm, though there was little threat of rain on a day like today. He also still had the little gold ring on his right pinkie, though now it appeared to be joined by a gold one on his left ring finger. 

Cooper must have noticed him looking. “I finally convinced Albert that it was in our financial and medical best interest to make everything official.”

“Congratulations,” Phil said warmly as the other man sat beside him.

“You look tired, Mike,” Cooper said.

Phil shot him a look, but the other man looked back placidly. Phil decided to let him have the illusion that he was talking to someone else, though Phil knew full well that the Cooper knew who he really was. He, eerily, had guessed it years ago.

“Something’s happening with me, Coop,” Phil said, resting his elbows on his knees and wiping his face. “Something I can’t explain or control and it’s frightening.”

Cooper regarded him with a serious expression, “It is often those things that are out of our control that are most frightening to us, but I think your issue is a little more temporal.”

“We came across something and ever since I’ve had to-I’ve this compulsion to carve these symbols, all over the walls, thousands of them. It’s not every night, but it’s increasing in frequency. I don’t know what they mean and I don’t what this means for me. I’m scared that I’m losing my mind.”

If one of the thousands of tourists were to look over they would see two men, both troubled, but one without the experience to cover it. They might have wondered at the faraway look on the older one’s face as he turned the gold ring on his pinkie. They might have felt sorry for the loss and consuming exhaustion that radiated off the other man, who fiddled with a ring on a chain, the only link to someone gone away and unable to see from this distance.

At last, Cooper began to speak, his voice a susurration of silk, “I have spent years wandering my life, be it corporeally or spiritually. I have confronted the duality in me, good and evil. I have studied to be kinder to all beings and aware of all of nature. And I have had all of it mean nothing when it came to the loss of control, the loss of self, that I experienced nearly 25 years ago.”

His voice was captivating and Phil was gripped by the inescapable desire to see this man’s mind, bright and labyrinthian as it must be. He knew more than most about what had happened that fateful night back in Twin Peaks and the very real struggle Dale Cooper had gone through to reclaim himself from the demon who sat in his soul. With all the evil Cooper had perpetrated whilst bound to that creature, and witnessed besides as an FBI agent, it was a wonder he could still speak with such compassion.

“I have no cure for you, Phil,” Cooper addressed him by his given name, dropping all pretense. “I have no real wisdom for you either. I can only offer you this: suffering is caused by ignorance and desire and they cannot be unlinked. Do you truly know yourself, Phil? Do you recognize your path as one meant for you or one that you have followed because you want it so badly you have not allowed yourself to be diverted from it?”

“You sound like Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Phil remarked.

Cooper’s head cocked to the side, “Have you been speaking to Albert?”

Phil laughed despite himself and sat back. “I was sure of myself before. Until the world decided to change.”

“High heels get taller and tempers get shorter, Phil, but I don’t think either of those, nor much else, can change who you are fundamentally.”

“And when your purpose in question? When your effectiveness is questionable? When you’re just embodying 'fake it ‘til you make it?'"

Cooper smiled then, broad and full of teeth. “I do believe Albert would say that even Obi-Wan Kenobi was known to ‘bullshit’ his way through parts of life.” Phil laughed and when he sobered, affection lingered at the corners of Cooper’s mouth, though his eyes were serious. “I think you can only do what we always do: investigate the mystery. But don’t let yourself be held back by who you are supposed to be and where you are supposed to go. Trust in the path, Phil, I think you will find your answers even if the control eludes you.”

With that, Cooper rose, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and walked to the edge of the path, looking out over the river. Whatever contemplation that drew him there and whatever conclusion he came to, when he turned back, his smile was radiant. He walked back, planted each foot deliberately, and offered his hand.

“Whatever happens, Agent Casper, it has been a genuine pleasure speaking with you.” 

Phil huffed out a laugh at the name and took the proffered hand. “The feeling is entirely mutual, my friend. Take care.”

“And you,” Cooper said with a nod. With that, he slung the forgotten trench coat over his arm and walked away without looking back.

Phil took a deep breath and walked to the edge of the path of himself. He glanced up-river to where SHIELD had fallen and felt what he thought must have been the shakes of fate ripple through his chest. He supposed, from a certain point of view, he had already been diverted from his chosen path, had been offered a different way and he had followed it. He looked away, to the river itself and whatever sight had captured Cooper’s attention. He smiled.

A family of ducks were floating downstream, propelled effortlessly in the barely discernible current. “Look at that,” Phil said quietly.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping the Twin Peaks inclusion doesn't divert people from reading. Believe me, I restrained myself from making an X-Files reference in this. That being said, the ducks are very much an homage to Twin Peaks and Dale Cooper.


End file.
